Belle Glade And Clewiston Had POW Camps During World War II

Q: Were there prisoner of war camps for Germans in South Florida?
A: During World War II, more than 9,000 went to 22 Florida camps, including facilities in Belle Glade and Clewiston. American camp guards ate the same food as the prisoners, in keeping with the Geneva Convention. Prisoners went out to work in fields in and around the camp before 8 a.m. and were back about 3 p.m. Some prisoners bolted for freedom.
But Florida was not an easy place to be on the lam, and they were caught. Prisoners weren’t punished for trying to escape.
The military charged farmers the going rate for the labor but they were able to show a profit by paying the prisoners 80 cents a day in coupons they traded for items like cigarettes and beer, when available.
Access to such treats led to a showdown with local distributors in early 1945. They halted supplies to Morrison Field, now Palm Beach International Airport, when they learned the facility was sharing them with the POWs.
Liberty Point, near Clewiston, operated from February 1944 to September 1945. The Belle Glade camp ran from March to December 1945. Almost immediately, the Germans put Belle Glade on the national map when they held a two-day strike over a cut in cigarette rations.
The American public, press and politicians angrily painted word pictures of coddled Germans whining over cigarettes at a time when GIs were stumbling across Nazi concentration camps. Thirty-nine prisoners considered troublemakers were transferred and the army handed down a stern “no work, no eat” policy that allowed only bread and water for sloths.
Lawrence Will Museum at Belle Glade Public Library: 966-3453.
Clewiston Museum: (863) 983-2870.
Read More: Robert Billinger Jr., Hitler’s Soldiers in the Sunshine State, and Eliot Kleinberg, War in Paradise, Stories of Florida in World War II.